More Than Corn in Indiana

Indiana Beach's famous theme song says, "There's more than corn in Indiana, at Indiana Beach." Well, there's not a whole lot more than corn, but we still find ourselves going back year after year for old time's sake. Frankly, after you've been to Cedar Point, it is hard to get very worked up about a simple trip to the Indiana Beach Amusement Park. Moreover, the park just isn't what it once was. The boys are almost too big for the appeal of a family-friendly park (i.e., the rides are very basic and instead of improving, the park tends to decline year after year). It used to be run and manned by local folk and things were fairly inexpensive. While you can still pay to simply walk around the park (something we always appreciated in years when I was pregnant), lots of things have increased in price (you now have to pay $7 for a locker to store things for the water area, whereas it was always only 50 cents before).

The one thing in its favor, (which cannot really be a good thing, if you think about it) is that you don't have to fight off crowds. We went on a Wednesday and barely waited for a single ride. Plus, we do have a few things we like to do in a ritualistic way. For example, the boys always want to have money for the arcades and insist on spending some of it in the Ghouls Shooting Gallery:

They always beg to ride the Sky Coaster (even though it adds further expense):

We have a few favorite rides (The Falling Star, The Cornball Express, The Tig'rr, Double Shot, and The Steel Hawg). You can clearly see the lack of a line:

Plus, this year we rode the Shafer Queen around Lake Shafer:

The boys rode the one new ride (new as in it had never been there before, but old as in it still has the FireBall sign on one side, while Indiana Beach has named it ZeroG - must be some other amusement park's castoff). We pined away for the taste of a fruit smoothie (because they have removed that particular booth, along with the Noble Roman's pizza and the booth where we once purchased wire name sculptures - too many cherished memories deflated). We were still able to finish the day with a delicious elephant ear, so all was not lost.

============

As of 2/19/20 Apex Parks announced Indiana Beach will be closed for good. Here's an ode to Indiana Beach and a few of our treasured memories.